The Four Horsemen
by Charlotte-xoxo
Summary: Two dangerous criminals escape from prison, and small-town girl Bella struggles to tame her anger. Soon, people start dying and she's faced with a choice: a family of fugitives who can show her who she's born to be, or a beautiful bronze-haired FBI agent convinced she's a murderer. Her choice could end the world, or save it, because Armageddon is coming and the red horse is first.
1. Chapter 1: Escape

**Author's Notes:**

**I took a really long hiatus, and nearly gave up on writing for good, but I've seen the light. I've written about half of this story already now, so new chapters should be up every day or two. If you're an old reader of mine, I've started rewriting 'Military Academy' and that story will hopefully be finished sometime this year. Finally! Also, wow! I'm amazed you're still here. If you're new, then who even cares, right?**

**This is my favourite story idea I've ever had, so enjoy!**

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><p>Chapter 1: Escape<p>

"Hi mom, I'm home," Bella called from the hallway, as she yanked her key out of the front door and slammed it shut. She had pushed it into the lock a little too hard, just a few too many times, and now it was permanently bent slightly out of shape. It still worked though, so she wasn't complaining. She lived in a nice, warm house, albeit with her parents, but it was more than many had. She could deal with a broken key. It was just that it was so goddamn annoying! She saw red and clenched her teeth with a rage so fierce she thought it might tear her clean in two.

The angry thought vanished almost as quickly as it reared its head, and she blinked in surprise. Where the thought had come from she wasn't sure, but it had been happening a lot lately. The hot, instantaneous flashes of fury and anger appeared out of nowhere and then, moments later, it was as if nothing had happened. She couldn't explain it, any of it, and it perplexed her more than she wanted to admit. She had never been a particularly angry person before… well, before her twentieth birthday a few months ago, if she had to guess. That had been around the time that she had started snapping at her friends, at her parents, and even at the neighbour's dog over the stupidest things. She couldn't even remember what half of the gripes had even been about, except that she had been momentarily angry to the point of violence each time, before getting over it entirely. She suspected a mental breakdown was on its way.

"Hey there, Bella," Charlie called from the other end of the hall, before he appeared in the doorframe. Her dad was in the kitchen then. She wasn't surprised. He had taken her parents' separation a few months ago fairly hard, and spent most of his time with his nose in a cookery book or baking magazine these days.

"Hey back, Charlie," she called, dropping her messenger bag on the floor by the door before hurrying down the passageway to give her dad a hug. He didn't blink at her calling him Charlie. She'd been doing that ever since she was old enough to realise that his name wasn't actually Dad. She figured, considering the somewhat strained relationship he had with his parents, and now his wife, that he was just glad they were talking at all. She made sure to show him she loved him as much as possible to make up for it, and now that was so much more important with her mother not talking to him anymore. Speaking of her mother…

"How was work, Bells?" Renee's carefree call preceded her down the stairs, wrapping Bella in a warm hug of familiarity even before she was pulled into her mother's waiting arms. She tucked her head down and counted to ten, before pulling away gently until Renee released her. It wasn't that she didn't want to hug her for longer, but she had only hugged her father for nine seconds and she knew that he would notice. He noticed everything now and she knew that kind of thing would bother him, even if he would never be bold enough to say it aloud.

"Fine," Bella lied, as her parents both watched her expectantly. She knew that she couldn't tell them the truth, that she hated every single of her miserable existence whilst at the office, but she knew that it would crush them if they knew how relieved she really was to leave that place and come home. Things were far from perfect here too, but at least these two people loved her, even if they didn't much care for each other.

"No-one bothered you today, honey?" Charlie asked, sneaking a quick glance over at Renee when he thought she would be distracted looking at Bella. Unfortunately, her mother had reflexes like a cobra, and shot him a dirty look out of the corner of her eye. He looked away quickly, back to Bella.

"Nope," Bella told them, hoping that the hopelessness in her eyes wouldn't give too much away. Thankfully, neither of her parents noticed, and the conversation drifted into silence. Renee was still glaring at Charlie, and Charlie was trying to look innocent and peaceable. It made subterfuge easier when they were more interested in bugging each other than bugging her. "So, what's for dinner?"

"Ask your father," Renee griped, and turned her back on both of them to head into the dining room and set the table. She did it every night, just like Charlie cooked dinner every evening. He was recently retired from the Forks Police Department, and her mother had never really had a job to begin with, so they had plenty of time to spend in the house preparing dinner for their daughter. Bella remembered a time when they had used to prepare the meal together, but that time was long gone. Now they organised their schedules to avoid each other as much as possible.

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><p>"That was great, Charlie," Bella said, pushing most of her caramelised parmesan mountain away from her on the not-even-close-to-empty plate. She had no idea what she had eaten, but it had truly been delicious. Her father was definitely getting better at the whole cooking thing. It was just a shame that he cooked enough for four portions each. "You should make this again."<p>

"Humph." Renee made a noise, and Bella tried not to smile. She couldn't compliment just one of them anymore. They were like children.

"Your table decoration looks wonderful, Renee," she told her earnestly. She pointed at one of the folded napkins. "That really does look like a dragonfly this time." At least, she hoped that was what it was supposed to be. She saw her mother beam, and sighed in relief, knowing that she'd got it right.

She wished that her mom would smile more, but nobody really smiled in their house anymore. The barely-three bedroom condo on the edge of town was now more of a boarding house than a home. Renee had the master bedroom at the front of the house, Charlie had moved into the box room at the back of the house, and the childhood bedroom Bella had always loved was now sandwiched between their bitter breakup.

Neither of them had nearly enough money for another house, even a rented flat, so they had come to the conclusion fairly quickly that they had no choice but to remain under one roof. Bella didn't think that her dad was that upset about the proposition; he'd always been the quiet, placid one anyway, but her mother had not taken it well. She'd posted a shower schedule outside the shared bathroom a week after Charlie had moved his clothes out of her room, and now tried her best to avoid him.

Bella couldn't help but wonder what had gone wrong. It had all happened so fast. She had celebrated her twentieth birthday, and she distinctly remembered her parents making out in the kitchen during the party, but it couldn't have been much after that when the arguments started. She had started having the anger flashes around the same time too, she estimated. Her friends had thought that it might be a side effect of her parents' marriage imploding, and she was inclined to agree. After all, what else could it be?

Her father left the dining room to wash the dishes, and Bella faintly heard a news broadcast as the television in the kitchen turned on.

Her friends, Bella thought absently. Some friends they were. She remembered telling Angela, Jessica and Lauren, the girls at work, about her parents, and about the anger she'd been feeling. Lauren had never really been overly friendly, but the others were her closest friends in the world. They had been to school together, gone to parties together, were inseparable. Or at least they had been. A few days after they had been consoling her over her parents' dramas, and reassuring her that she wasn't experiencing menopause two decades early, they had started gossiping amongst themselves and stopped talking to her.

She didn't know what she had done to upset them, but the three of them had made it their mission to sabotage all of her paperwork and every task she was assigned. Every day, they would find new ways to undermine and spite her. They only seemed to get more vicious and more venomous when she got upset about it, so Bella had learnt quickly to stay calm and ignore them. It seemed to work, but she was now lonelier than ever.

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><p>"The two were last seen crossing the state border into Washington late last night. Police say that they are heavily armed, and should not be approached under any circumstances."<p>

Bella's head snapped up at the muffled words of the news anchors, drifting in through the open kitchen door. She stood up and hurried over to catch the rest of the story. Later she would never be able to tell anyone how, at that exact moment, she knew she needed to watch the television, but her gut told her that it was the most important thing in the world just then.

"What they do?" she questioned, and Charlie glanced around as if surprised to find her in the kitchen.

"Guy an' a girl, your age, broke out of a maximum security prison in Nevada yesterday. Evaded the FBI and hijacked a car heading straight for Seattle. Now you know as much as I do, Bells," he told her.

"Oh," Bella said, trying to sound nonchalant, but inside her stomach was churning. She knew she had no reason to feel nervous, since she had no idea who these people were and what they might have done, but her stomach still felt like she'd eaten a horse then immediately gone for a jog.

"… the FBI are appealing to anyone who sees them to report it by calling this number immediately." Two mug shots flashed up on screen as the man spoke, and Bella gasped in shock. She had known that they were her age, but she hadn't expected two dangerous criminals to be so normal looking. One of them was a slim brunette girl, who looked no older than eighteen, her pixie cut hair framing her pale face like a halo. The other was a seemingly slightly older man, with blonde, shortly-cropped hair and eyes that were so shadowed by deeply furrowed brows that she couldn't make out the colour. The expressions on their faces made Bella's stomach knot even further. They both looked so determined and fierce that it felt like they were staring straight at her, into her and inside her soul. "The authorities would like to remind the public," the female anchor continued, "that these two fugitives are said to be responsible for the deaths of at least six people, and should not be approached."

"They certainly look like killers, don't they?" Charlie mumbled, dishes forgotten as he watched the report on screen.

"I guess," Bella agreed, although she knew deep down she was lying. The two people on the screen looked menacing from the outside but she was captivated by the brunette girl's eyes. They were not, as one might have expected, full of anger. They looked to Bella instead to be filled with hope. Or maybe she was just wishing it to be true. She was probably crazy. She couldn't help, however, feeling a certain sense of sorrow and loss when she looked at the two of them, one that she couldn't even begin to explain.

The screen flashed again, and Bella's gaze focused back onto the images once again.

"Eye witness accounts so far suggest that the two appear to be looking for something or someone. The FBI believes that this footage, taken just hours before the breakout occurred, could provide valuable insight into whatever or whoever they are after. Take a look, and call if you can help."

The image changed to blurry surveillance camera footage, angled down into an empty concrete yard. The legend on screen read that it was the training yard in the penitentiary. After a moment, the guy from the mug shot came into view across the yard and walked over until he was almost directly underneath the camera. He looked up, straight into the lens, and pointed right at Bella. She took a step back instinctively, before she remembered he couldn't possibly be pointing at her.

"We're leaving tonight," he said loudly and calmly, so the microphone on the camera could pick up his words. He looked as if he had not a care in the world, and exactly like someone who was not about to scale a wall to attempt escape from one of the most fortified buildings in the world. "I'm speaking to the one cloaked in fear and insatiable rage. You'll draw first blood soon, and then we will be united. See you soon, sister." Bella froze in shock as he winked up at the camera and strode back across the yard the way he had come. The anchor man's face returned once more to remind the public to stay safe, then the news was over and her dad went back to washing dishes.

The man was clearly not talking to or about her; he couldn't have been, so why did she feel so afraid. His words were utterly unfamiliar, but they touched something hidden inside her mind and made her question her whole outlook on life. She wasn't fear personified, but she certainly got upset a lot these days. Neither was she consumed by rage, but she had to admit that she had been extremely angry lately. He had mentioned drawing blood, not something she ever planned to do intentionally, but, even as she thought about it, something in her subconscious whispered that it wouldn't really be so bad to cause a bit of violence and pain. She shut the thought down as soon as it surfaced, but she was already freaked.

Hurrying upstairs in silence, Bella clambered into bed without even bothering to remove her shoes. She yanked the comforter over her head and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the rushing in her ears and the red she saw behind her eyelids. She pressed her clenched fists to her eyes to try to keep the tears from flowing and bit her lip, even as she heard Charlie calling from downstairs to ask what was wrong. She stayed quiet, but he didn't ask again. Instead she heard a door slam and another crash open.

"What the hell did you do now, Charlie?" she heard her mom scream, and almost immediately heard his scathing response. She stayed curled up, and let the tears flow freely now. Her parents always started to argue when she needed them most, when she was most upset. Perhaps that was just the way her life was supposed to be, she reasoned. Maybe she was just doomed to a life of hidden tears and vicious arguments. To a life of 'fear and insatiable rage', her subconscious supplied unhelpfully, and she stifled a sob. The man on the TV couldn't possibly be looking for her, but that didn't stop her from feeling like her world was about to come to an abrupt end.

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><p>"Where too next, darlin'?" the blond man asked as he hopped back into the driver's seat of the Chevy truck. The short girl next to him blinked once, then opened her eyes and turned her head to face him in the passenger seat. She smiled up at him and he grinned back, tossing her a paper bag full of candy bars and potato chips for the journey. She had finally seen something new.<p>

"Forks," Alice replied. Jasper nodded and turned the key to start up the engine. They were close now, he could tell. Soon, they would all finally be together.

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><p><strong>Author's Notes: Comment and criticise as you will. Thanks for your readership. <strong>


	2. Chapter 2: Bloodshed

**Author's Notes:**

**Thank you so much to my reviewers and favouriters/alerters from chapter 1. Enjoy…**

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><p>Chapter 2: Bloodshed<p>

"Do you think she saw us?" one of Bella's former friends stage-whispered from the other side of the room. She thought it might have been Jessica, but it didn't really matter. They were all huddled in a group and any one of them might have said it. They all looked up, as if they sensed her staring, and giggled conspiratorially when they saw Bella watching them. It was a nuisance to always have them laughing at her and saying things behind her back, just barely loud enough for the whole office to hear, but she could handle it. She had to handle it, she told herself, or she'd go insane… if she wasn't already.

This was turning out to be a fairly mild day, if she was honest. Most days the bullying was more physical, but if she stayed calm and didn't engage them the nastiness was minimal. After the traumatic events of last night, the last thing Bella wanted was a confrontation. She didn't even feel angry today, just lonely. She felt the tears welling up, and the bitchy giggles rose in volume as if to serenade their falling. She sniffed back the tears and got up from her desk, heading for the restroom and determined not to let them see her cry. They would be nasty all day if she cried.

Finding all three cubicles empty, she stepped inside the middle one, locked the door with the bolt and shoved the bin against the door as an extra line of defense against the outside world. Then she climbed on top of the closed toilet lid, tucking her legs underneath her body and wrapping her arms around her waist. She hid her face in the wide neck of her sweater and let the tears soak into the soft woolen fabric.

She was still for several minutes, near-silent tears and soft, shaky breaths the only sounds echoing through the empty room. There was a sign, reminding staff to wash their hands, pasted on the inside of the door, and Bella distracted herself by staring at it a few times. The toothy, smiling woman with a fist full of Anti-Bac was enough to gain her attention for a few seconds, between sobs.

She was staring at one of the woman's pearly white teeth so intently that she almost didn't hear the door creak open, followed by the sound of footsteps. The door banged shut and Bella held her breath, both tears and teeth forgotten as her brain replaced them with fear. She listened carefully and heard one… no, two sets of footsteps getting closer to the door with every thundering heartbeat.

"We know it's you in here, Bella." Jessica's voice drifted in through the crack under the door, and Bella's body stiffened. "You can't hide from us, bitch." Bella gasped, in spite of herself, and Jessica laughed aloud. This was no girly giggle now, but a full-bodied laugh that oozed hatred and aggression. Jessica had never called her a bitch before. Not ever. That was worse than the shoving and name-calling any day of the week.

"Yeah, Bella!" And there, like Jessica's Siamese twin, was Lauren. The two were now pretty much inseparable. "You'll have to come out sooner or later."

As Lauren's words sank in, Bella wondered where Angela was. Angela had always been the nicest one to Bella, even after they had abandoned her. Bella hoped she'd seen sense and decided not to take part. The other two didn't need her help to make Bella's life miserable; they did that well enough as a pair.

"Go away?" Bella had meant it as an instruction but, to her dismay, it came out as more of a question. Her hands shook, and she was breathing heavily as she wiped at her cheeks again. She had to get it together or they'd never stop. She tried again, praying that her voice wouldn't crack or waiver. "Go away!"

"Not a chance in hell, honey," Lauren said scathingly. One of them pushed on the door, shaking it a few times as if to test the strength of the lock. They weren't actually going to try and break it down, were they? Bella felt like her whole world was spiraling out of control. These were her friends, not mindless aggressors. They had been friends for over ten years. Why was this happening to her now?

"Let us i-in," Jessica sang, and the thin wooden door shook again. Bella saw it bend this time, and her eyes narrowed in disbelief. Now they were just making her annoyed. No matter who these people were, they couldn't treat her like this anymore. She had been passive and non-confrontational for months, hoping they would see how stupid and mean this was, but enough was enough. She was getting angry for no reason these days anyway. Why not get angry for a legitimate reason for once?

"Stop it!" Bella snapped, swinging her legs down and pushing herself up of the ceramic lid. Placing one hand on the inside of the stall door, she lowered her other hand ready to unlock the bolt and shove her way past the girls outside. "Just quit already."

"Aw, is little Bells scared of big bad me?" Lauren asked. Bella snarled, sliding the bolt loose and already planning her comeback when she heard a loud smack echo off the tiled walls.

"What the fuck?" Lauren screamed. Jessica must have hit her… hard. Bella froze for a moment, and then slowly slid the bolt back into place. She was still furious, and more than a little shocked, but self-preservation screamed that she didn't want to get involved in whatever had just occurred.

"You always say the stupidest things, moron," Jessica told Lauren and Bella heard another smack, followed by a howl of pain from Jessica this time.

"Well you can just shut the fuck up!" Lauren screamed, and then the door bent and cracked a little down the middle as a body was thrown against it. Bella backed up until she was next to the cistern, but the door just about held. She thrust her hands up to cover her ears, to try to shield herself from the screams and thuds just feet away from her. She couldn't completely block it out, and she could see shadows rippling and moving quickly across the patch of floor outside that she could see from under the door. Bella squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for the fight to end before they hurt each other, her anger dissipating as she realized how strange and out of control her friends had become.

The entire frame of the stall block shook as someone impacted it with an almighty crunch one last time, and then the room fell silent. Bella stayed absolutely still for a good few moments, allowing her fingers to release her ears and her head fraction by fraction. She didn't want to move in case she made them mad again, but she had an uneasy feeling that she wasn't going to cause any more damage than had already been done. She'd done enough.

She didn't know why her conscience was convinced that this had been her fault, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she had somehow caused this. She hadn't actually done anything, other than hide, but this was all because of her, for a reason that still escaped her. She stepped forward, to open the door for real this time and try to help calm down her friends.

"Hey guys, did you make her come out yet?" Bella stiffened as she heard Angela's muffled voice from out in the corridor, just before the door swung open. "I got the stuff that…" She broke off, and there was a pregnant pause before Angela started screaming. It was the most painful, heart-wrenching noise Bella had ever heard and she looked down, as if she was instinctively trying to give Angela some privacy, just in time to see the blood start to seep under the door and soak into her white canvas shoes. Then Bella was screaming too, and it was all too much.

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><p>"Oh god, oh god, oh my god," Bella repeated over and over, huddled on top of the toilet lid again. The door was open now but just a crack, so she couldn't see the black body bags or the rest of the blood. Nobody was screaming anymore. Angela had been escorted away by one of the office managers some time before the police had arrived, but the ghost of a scream still echoed in her head like an aftershock.<p>

Bella still couldn't process what was happening, or what the body bags signified. It just couldn't be true. That was Lauren and Jess. They were her friends. She could shake the idea that this was somehow her fault that they were both d… She couldn't say it.

This was her fault, even if the police didn't believe her and it made no sense whatsoever. She'd tried to tell them, stammering and mumbling like a madman about hiding and getting angry and riling them up and the fighting and the crack of body on wood and… but they wouldn't listen. They just kept saying that it was a tragic accident, a cat fight gone bad. They had reassured her that it couldn't have been her fault but if that was true, why did she feel like her heart was breaking in ways she hadn't even known were possible.

She hadn't been able to help it when the images of the man from the report last night swam behind her eyelids. He had said that bloodshed would follow, and he had been right. She hadn't realized it before, but the guy had obviously been talking about her, which made her… what?

She didn't even know what she was anymore. Was she even human? Was she a super-villain? Witch? The scenarios got more and more bizarre and unfocused as she sat in silence, waiting for the medical examiner and the paramedics to finish clearing up and investigating and whatever. Not that they needed to investigate. She knew exactly what had happened. She'd gotten upset and angry and then she'd used her freaky mind powers or whatever to kill them. She had wanted them to go away, and now they were gone forever.

She started to sob again, and hugged her sweater to her face. Maybe if she hid herself from what she'd done, it would never have happened. If she could do this, then maybe she could turn back time or change history and save them from her. Maybe… She needed to get her shit together, and quick. There was absolutely no way this could be her fault, and people simply didn't have super powers. She was delirious and distraught and she was in no shape to be analyzing anything, let alone her slim grip on reality.

"Miss Swan," a male voice called to her, and the door creaked open. "My partner and I are with the FBI. Could we ask you a few questions?" He sounded nice enough, but she kept her eyes tightly shut regardless. Now that the door was open, she would have no choice but to see the aftermath and she just couldn't bring herself to see that.

"Sure." She kept her head down, but she felt a person step into the cubicle in front of her. He placed a large, warm hand on her shoulder and she took in a deep shaky breath.

"Will you look at me, Isabella?" He asked gently, and she shook her head.

"I don't want to see."

"I understand," he replied, and then he paused. "Trust me," he whispered and then she gasped as she felt him slip a hand under her legs and another around her back, lifting her into the air and carrying her out of the cubicle. She kept her eyes shut until she heard the door bang shut behind them and heard the thundering air-con that told her that they were in the corridor. She raised her head to find herself face-to-face with a chin of neatly cropped stubble. It was a nice chin, she thought. It was an odd thought, but it was a distraction from her own mangled psyche for a few moments.

She found herself being lowered into an office chair and blinked. The chin morphed into a nose as the man crouched down to her level, and then he met her gaze. He had nice eyes, if a little close together. She leaned back in the chair to take in his whole face. Nope, they weren't too close together. She'd just gone a little cross-eyed from being so close to him.

"Are you alright?" She nodded, and he smiled. He had a nice smile too, she noticed. She returned his grin before remembering what she'd just witnessed, the smile fading from both their faces as the horror returned to her eyes. "Okay, that was a bad question," he mumbled apologetically.

"S'okay. I'm fine," she replied. She certainly wasn't going to tell him how she really felt. No-one needed that visual, especially not this nice man who was trying to help her.

"Can you tell us what happened, ma'am?" Bella's head snapped up and to the left as she focused on the unexpected second voice. This must be his partner, the other FBI guy. That thought sobered her up pretty damn fast. These guys, no matter how kind they might be, were investigating the death of two of my closest friends.

"Um, I'm not sure exactly." She decided that she would be as honest as possible. There no way, no matter how unsure she might be about everything, that she could be guilty of their murders, and therefore she had no reason to lie about it. If only her conscience would receive that message, along with her subconscious. "I was hiding in the stall and they came in after me. I was crying, and they started taunting me. They started fighting somehow, and then they were dead." I think I might have killed them, she added silently.

"They had no motive for fighting whatsoever?" The partner asked incredulously.

"Not that I know of," she told him, and he nodded. He waited for her to continue, but she didn't know what else to say. "I may have missed parts of the argument, because I was pretty angry, but there didn't seem to be a motive that I heard."

"You say that you were angry?" The first man asked, glancing at his partner as if asking a silent question. The partner shook his head and frowned. He was not as pleasant as the first one, who turned back to Bella and stared intently into her eyes. "Can you describe exactly how you felt throughout the exchange with the deceased? It will seem like an odd question, but be as thorough as you can."

"Well at first I was upset, and they were scaring me when they came in and started to shout at me through the stall door. Then I realized how ridiculous it was for a grown woman to be cowering in fear, and I got angry at them. Then they all of a sudden started attacking each other, and I was just plain terrified again. That's pretty much it," she finished lamely.

"So you got real angry just before they started fighting?" the partner asked, and Bella nodded.

"I know it was mean of me to be annoyed, but they'd been bothering me for weeks. I was mad at them and now I can't even tell them how much I loved them, in spite of everything. They're just gone." She sniffed back a tear, and the man kneeling in front of Bella patted her hand awkwardly. He started standing up, before pausing and turning back to face her.

"I need to talk to my partner, Agent McCarty for a moment. Stay here and do me a favor. Don't talk about this any further with any of the other police officers. Just wait for us to come back, if you need to tell us anything else about what you remember. We won't be long." He stood to his full height and motioned for Agent McCarty to follow him down the hall, away from both Bella's chair and the bathroom.

"Wait," she called. "You didn't tell me your name."

"Cullen," he told her. "I'm Agent Cullen."

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><p><strong>Author's Notes:<strong>

**So this chapter was getting pretty long, so I ended it here. Things will start to be explained next time.**

**Comment or critique as you wish. All feedback is most welcome.**


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